52
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 22, 2018
my international-development formal-
ity and just be a little more relaxed,"Case
told me. Eventually, they were able to
hold a call more or less uninterrupted.
They asked Nwabudike what she would
cover if the show ran that week, and she
mentioned that the President of Nige-
ria, Muhammadu Buhari, had been miss-
ing for weeks, after going to London for
an undisclosed medical treatment. "That's
certainly a ripe premise for comedy,"
Bleyer said.
Judging comedy writers in a foreign
culture was an inexact process. For one
thing, Case and Bleyer couldn't under-
stand many of the jokes that applicants
submitted, since they were full of local
references. One had written a sketch with
a reference to the Liam Neeson movie
"Taken," in which a call from a kidnap-
per was interrupted by a lack of mobile
credit. Bleyer thought that was funny. But,
over all, Bleyer and Case were interested
less in whether someone could structure
a joke than in whether the person was well
versed in the news and had a point of view
that could give the show critical bite.
"We're not the ones saying, 'Do this joke,
do that joke,' " Bleyer told me. "We're the
ones saying, 'Here's how to get the joke
to be the best form it can be, and here's
how you get this show done by Friday
night.' " To that end, P.M.I. had created a
manual running to more than two hun-
dred pages that instructed writers on ev-
erything from constructing setups to pitch-
ing jokes and structuring their workday.
To find a host, Graeme Moreland had
haunted comedy shows in Lagos. He
settled on a well-known comic named
Okechukwu Onyegbule, who performs
under the name Okey Bakassi. Bakassi,
who is forty-eight years old, has been
doing standup comedy for twenty-
five years, and has become a household
name throughout West Africa for his
film roles. He performs to sold-out
crowds of African immigrants in Lon-
don, Houston, and Salt Lake City. As
soon as Moreland saw Bakassi perform,
he said, "it was just game over for me,
because he's so adaptable. He's a proper
grownup." Channels had o ered Bakassi
a four-month contract, the length of the
first season. But Bakassi was holding out
for a yearlong contract, which, Bleyer
explained, is known in Hollywood as
a holding deal. As leverage, Bakassi
claimed that he was considering becom-
ing the host of a di erent talk show.
"That's bullshit," Case said. "It's not
anything time sensitive. It would still be
there if this show tanks."
Bleyer's face lit up. "I love it," he said,
gesturing toward Case. "He's now using
Hollywood talk. He says 'If this show
tanks,' whereas the international-devel-
opment language would be something
like 'If this show doesn't find its audi-
ence,' or 'If this show---' "
" '---doesn't yield the results,' " Case
said, laughing.
" '---yield the results as prescribed in
the grant agreement,' " Bleyer said.
" 'Too many challenges prevented
it from reaching its desired output,' "
Case said.
Eventually, Channels nailed down
Bakassi. The first time I met him,
he was sitting at the head of a table in
the executive boardroom of Channels,
watching the test episode. His assistant
and a Channels producer looked on.
Bakassi wore a linen shirt with a black-
and-white traditional pattern, black linen
pants, and an enormous pinky ring, which
he tapped against the table when he was
thinking. American comedians tend to
be ill-kempt and socially awkward.
Bakassi has a stately presence and not a
whi of self-doubt. A trained agricul-
tural engineer, he speaks with a mea-
sured precision that brings to mind a
newscaster from the golden age of Amer-
ican broadcasting. In his view, Nigeria
is a great place for a comedian. "Our
people, we're full of drama," he said.
Bakassi finished watching the test
episode in silence.There was a long pause.
Nobody was happy with it. The sound
was o , and the editing was wonky.
Bakassi had used a pair of white iPhone
earbuds as in-ear monitors, and they
showed distractingly on the screen.There
was a general agreement that the con-
tent reflected too much of Rice's voice,
resulting in a watered-down, Jay Leno-
as-Nigerian monologue, delivered
uncomfortably by Bakassi. "A good
e ort," Bakassi said---then he quickly
launched into complaints. Some of the
team members were "writing for a white
audience,"he said. "We still have to make
it local in terms of content."
The son of an Army o cer, Bakassi
had travelled extensively in Nigeria as a
kid, giving him a love for the diversity of
the country. His emphasis on Nigerian
culture occasionally put him in conflict
with the writers, who were younger and
well versed in American and British pop
culture. Bakassi frequently replaced West-
ern pop-culture references with Nigerian
ones, striking a clip from "Harry Potter"
MEDIUM
In the nineteenth century,
I'd have found a medium,
a knocking table, a crystal ball,
but to conjure him in
I go online and Google,
scroll page after page until
his name disappears
in a list of random links,
but still there's his handle on Skype,
still the picture of him crossing the nish line
of the Portland marathon,
still the smiling-in-the-wind-on-the-beach photo, still
that e-mail that arrived at . .
back in February, those words of such
love and a rmation out of the blue